


Analysis of A Second-Act Bildungsroman

by Yellow_Bird_On_Richland



Series: used to be a gazelle (now she runs with the lions) [1]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Annie-Centric, Background Trobed, Character Study: Annie Edison, Coming Out, Gen, M/M, Platonic Trobedison, Songfic, lesbian Annie Edison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27537754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland
Summary: Her hairstylist, Dani, catches her gaze in the mirror once she’s settled in and has the salon cape arranged over her just so. She holds up her phone, pulls up the picture Annie texted her, and asks again to confirm, “This cut is what you want?”Old Annie would hesitate, hem and haw, and settle for her standard trim. Maybe she’d tell Dani to take a touch more off than usual, but even that small adjustment would test the limited scope of her bravery.New Annie nods before she can chicken out. “Chop it off.”
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Series: used to be a gazelle (now she runs with the lions) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2013109
Comments: 16
Kudos: 83





	Analysis of A Second-Act Bildungsroman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [annieedisongf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annieedisongf/gifts).



> Response to #3 on the Florence and the Machine prompt list from Tumblr: Who is the lamb and who is the knife? Set sometime in S4. Centered on Annie, with background Trobed and platonic Trobedison.

It happens slowly enough that Annie can't freak out, and she really has Abed and Troy to thank for that. Her boys introduce her to the idea of coming out somewhere outside of her critical literature reviews, even if they're not specifically trying to do that—it's difficult to say with Abed, in particular, just what's intentional and what's not.

After all, they don't even know she's gay. She hasn't told them yet. She hasn't told anyone.

It's taken her several months, but Annie's transformed her once-halting, timid acceptance of her sexuality into an independent study of sorts. And since she's physically incapable of half-assing anything, said study includes a special pastel pink binder packed with notes on texts like Charlotte Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Doris Lessing's "To Room Nineteen." Plus, she's crammed it with handwritten analysis of articles from the likes of Woolf and Butler (both Octavia and Judith), along with a little timeline outlining the struggles of LGBTQ+ individuals to work toward a more just—but still unjust as fuck—world to ascertain a better sense of her own spot in history.

It's a little strange, she realizes, as she contemplates a small, leaning tower of books on her desk, that she's confined this whole bit of her existence to her bedroom.

" _Maybe I could stand to open up a little bit,"_ she admits. _"But I don't think I'm quite ready yet. And I'd rather maintain where I'm at for now."_

After all, she'd had to start somewhere—and that somewhere, it turned out, was Greendale's library—once she finally let herself admit what she's known intimately ever since junior year of high school, when she realized she possessed keener insight into the likes and dislikes of Jake Domegala's girlfriends than he ever did. Hell, when he'd been fretting about getting his latest girl, Emily Kane, an anniversary gift in the lunchline during senior year, she'd told him, "Buy Emily an emerald necklace."

He'd looked at her, dumbstruck; after all, they were on polar opposite ends of the social hierarchy—the star wideout with a perfectly messy swoop haircut and the terribly clumsy, acne-ridden, four-eyed cheerleader. And she was giving him advice on how to woo his girlfriend.

"Her birthday is in May, and emerald is May's birthstone. And the green color will compliment her eyes."

She shakes her head and laughs to herself at the memory, thinking, _"It took me so long to get here, but here I am."_

Abed and Troy aid her in advancing from "here" so gradually and so respectfully that she doesn't realize, at first, what's going on. That they're helping her bring this part of herself to the surface, outside of what's become a highly academic context, outside of her bedroom, outside of the books she secretly lugs home from the library in her backpack. It's a tad difficult to believe, honestly. She'd become accustomed to drowning out the part of her psyche that whispered compliments on a girl's eyeliner or jeans at school or at the mall. She'd gotten plenty of practice at pinning it down to the bottom of an overfilled bathtub until bubbles stopped rising and the water settled.

Annie's not actively repressing herself as much any more, but her true self still remains submerged.

That changes a bit once she, Abed, and Troy start watching _The X Files_ together during one of their apartment's 90s television nights. She and Troy had jointly decided to suggest holding occasional themed movie or show weeks because, while they love Abed dearly, they can only abide by so many _Cougar Town_ reruns.

"I can't believe you two haven't watched _X Files_ at all," Abed remarks as they settle into their usual spots, with him and Troy each taking their La-Z-Boy recliners in front of the TV and casually holding hands in the small gap between their chairs while Annie curls up on the couch. "You're in for a treat. And the nice thing about the show is that you can watch any episode, more or less, as a standalone, if you want. Each season's plots tend to go a bit haywire as they progress, anyway."

Some of the show's special effects come off as a bit campy, and the fashion choices are painful reminders of the 90s, but Mulder and Scully establish a repartee in short order and, as Abed explains, "They're the heart of the show. They have a relationship that's not a relationship, not in the traditional sense of romantic television leads. Or, at least, to start."

Annie watches as he and Troy lock fingers for a second and shoot each other a sappy grin, and she lets them share their cute little moment.

The show, at times, reminds her of Greendale, of how insanity can be accepted by some and rejected by others, like when Mulder and Scully are trying to figure out how their car jumps forward on the road without either one of them remembering a thing about it.

"We lost nine minutes. Gone. Just like that!" Mulder exclaims with a snap of his fingers and a near-jig when they get out to investigate, and Scully groans, "Time can't just _disappear,_ Mulder. It's a universal invariant!"

Annie giggles as she sees and hears a flash of herself in the woman's exasperation, and Abed smiles softly before asking both her and Troy, "You're liking it so far?"

They both nod, and Annie's incredibly grateful Abed didn't deign to ask any follow-up questions. Because she's struck dumb by the sight of Scully stripping her robe off to take a shower in her hotel room and there's suddenly bare shoulders, smooth thighs, ample cleavage, bare _everything_ , and Annie swears the massive hitch in her breath snatches every last trace of oxygen from the room.

She nearly bites her tongue to keep from gasping, _"Jesus,"_ because Gillian Anderson's impossibly attractive, hot enough to probably have risque pictures of herself banned in the Bible Belt. Annie wills herself to not sit up, to not lean in closer to drink in the sight of her, to not grab the remote and impulsively mash the pause button so she can just _stare._

She's realizing now, _"I left a massive gap open in my research."_

Her "intermediate lesbian studies," as she's started to call her exploring, are all grounded in the abstract, the theoretical. In books, in textual analysis. That's all well and good, but she's _clearly_ overlooked the importance of including visual stimuli to supplement her library-based learning. So she takes painstaking care to rectify the mistake now that she's got such a golden opportunity staring her in the face.

She watches Scully's torso tighten in Mulder's candlelight as she stands stock-still, terrified that her lower back bears the same twin marks as the victims. Studies the way she cranes her neck and arches her back as she glances down in concern.

" _Ok,"_ Annie admits to herself, _"this kind of media consumption will definitely be a lovely addition to all the reading I've been doing."_

Fortunately for Annie, Troy and Abed are studying the scene intently, too. But they're looking for the plot point of a potential challenge to overcome, whereas she's consumed by Scully's divine, nearly naked body. Given the chance, Annie happily, pervertedly appropriates the male gaze, and she can't find an iota of a fuck to give for that particular indiscretion. Not when she can devote her brainpower to memorizing the curve of Scully's hips, to devouring the sight of her taut stomach contracting as she breathes in, to admiring the exquisite, pale canvas of her bare back.

Once he's finished his inspection, Mulder comments, "Those bumps are just mosquito bites, Scully. I got chewed up, too," and laughs. Annie hyperventilates along with him.

Troy and Abed turn to look at her, a cocktail of confusion and suspicion etched on their faces and in their brows, and they glance at each other for a second to share one of their silent mind-meld conversations.

Troy turns back to Annie after a beat. "Are you alright, Annie?"

"Yeah." Her laugh comes out wild again, and she's _begging_ her eyes to retract into her skull, but she thinks her blown pupils might reveal her less-than-wholesome interest in the last scene. "That was just really funny. Pesky mosquitoes, mucking up a paranormal investigation, making Scully fret so much." She grabs her water off the coffee table, gulps it down, and recognizes the particular phenomenon she's suffering from in an acute, blazing blast of insight.

It feels a tad like a panic attack, but it's not. It's just gay panic.

Neither Troy nor Abed press her any further, thankfully, as the show rolls along. Abed pauses the episode as the final credits play out and turns to his boyfriend. "How would you rate them?"

Annie quirks up an eyebrow at the question, but Troy seems to understand Abed's query. "I think they each score an eight," he replies. "They're hot, but not, like, A-list movie star, disgustingly hot, where I wanna eat ice cream because I'll never look that good, but then hate myself for eating the ice cream in the first place."

Abed nods at him approvingly, then tilts his chin up to Annie. "Same question to you, amiga."

Annie frowns. "I'm sorry, but what's the question, exactly?"

Troy taps his chest and then gestures to Abed. "Our bad," he says, as Abed mutters to himself, "I knew we were forgetting to tell our Annie something."

She's still lost, so Troy fills in the gap, explaining, "We decided to make a semi-definitive ranking of the attractiveness of actors slash characters from different film and television decades," and Abed adds, "I'm eventually going to create a March Madness style bracket to…" he looks up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "I don't know if I can really declare a winner. I just thought it'd be an interesting exercise. Anyway," he drops his gaze back to Annie, "what are your thoughts on Scully and Mulder, slash Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, in terms of their looks?"

"Is the rating scale out of ten?" she asks back to buy time, even though she's already guessed it is.

Abed and Troy nod, and she swallows down her next question of, _"Can it go above that?"_ because she can't wipe the sight of a half-naked Dana Scully, bathed and framed in candlelight, out of her mind.

Instead, she steadies her breathing, keeps her voice as even as possible, and lies, "I'd give Scully slash Gillian a nine, and Mulder slash David a seven."

Abed grins at her. "Thanks for your participation, Annie. And I'm glad you liked the pilot. We can definitely watch some more _X Files_ , if you'd both like that."

Annie nods and answers "Yes," a bit too eagerly, a bit too quickly, then invents an excuse about how she needs to finish a spot of her Intro to Forensics homework so she can scurry into the safety of her room. Because if she closes her eyes and focuses hard enough, she can replay the sight of Scully slipping out of her robe on an endless, uninterrupted loop, and to her, that's worth at least an eleven on Abed's scale, if not a twelve.

**

She adds a section to her special binder, at the back. It's not shameful or anything. Just a tad silly, maybe. She starts jotting down her thoughts on characters from films and shows she likes, notices a motif of vibrant liveliness—all green, green, green springtime—running throughout her musings, like: _Rachel Green, for the love of God, you're assiduous, self-assured, stylish, and all sorts of sexy—give Ross the boot already!_ and _If Eva Green was my Bond girl, I'd risk every last poker chip for her._

She understands, now, just why Abed's so drawn to television, to a greater degree than she'd ever believed possible. Because who's going to tell her off for ignoring the middling dialogue in _Friends_ when she can instead study the glossy sheen of Rachel's lipsticked mouth, or the way her little black dress hugs her hips when she gets dolled up for a date? What's going to stop her from admiring the slinky evening gowns that all the contestants on _The Bachelor_ wear to impress the leading man?

She's careful to not fall prey to a role reversal, to flip from consuming media to allowing media to consume her. But _watching_ in this context—even the mere subversive act of allowing herself to consider women in this way, of not chastising herself for it later—sends warm thrills cascading through Annie's bones, sparks up bonfires of desire that she tends to with quiet reverence and respect.

She's slowly challenging herself to make strides outside the apartment, too, swapping out her dresses for pant suits once in a while. It's slow progress, but steady.

Shirley nearly derails it.

They're just finishing up a review session for an upcoming European History test when Shirley croons, "An-nie! I have a proposition for you."

"What's that, Shirley?" She doesn't look up from her textbook since she's still quizzing herself on key dates of the Franco-Prussian War.

"Well, I noticed you haven't mentioned seeing anyone in a while, so I was wondering if you'd want me to set you up with a nice young man from my church."

Her stomach somersaults and it feels like she just swallowed ash. "I...what?"

Shirley goes on, in her cheery tone, "I just realized you haven't been on a date recently, so, I figured I'd offer. The boy comes from a lovely family, very sweet, and he's a bit of a movie buff himself, and…"

Annie pictures having to hold a boy's sweaty, clammy hand. Imagines that hand daring to _touch her_. Bile rises in her throat and she shivers hard. She has no idea what more Shirley's said, but she forces the negation past her standard politeness. "No."

Shirley frowns. "No, what, An-nie?"

She has to do this. She can't do this. "No, I...I…" she starts, her voice nearly cracking to match the thoughts in her head splintering into so many different branches of _"Why do I owe anyone an explanation?"_ and _"Shirley's your friend, you could at least come up with a harmless little white lie,"_ and _"Stop hiding,"_ and _"It's not hiding if I haven't completely found myself or my voice yet,"_ and—

Abed cuts through the noise. "If I can jump in, I think Annie's saying she's not interested in finding a boyfriend at the moment. Since she'd rather focus on her studies." He turns to his own boyfriend. "She mentioned something like that the other night, didn't she, Troy?"

Her eyes go wide with fear—banking on Troy to do improv can backfire disastrously; they know this from "there's phones in the refrigerator!" and "We were just...about to...eat garbage dip"—but he delivers a passable performance today. "Yeah. Annie's aiming for class valedictorian and she doesn't want any distractions."

She gives both of them the warmest look she can, under the circumstances, hopes they hear her mentally screaming, _"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"_ even if they don't know the specifics of what she's grateful for, just before she tacks on, "I appreciate the offer, Shirley, but Abed and Troy are right. I'm just not looking for a boyfriend right now."

She omits, _"Or ever,"_ from her tiny speech, although adding it on would be a hell of a twist for the end of today's episode.

She has one to share with her boys, anyway, because this truth is starting to thrum inside her like a werewolf's spirit under the full moon. She can sense its yearning, the way this part of her identity wants to claw its way up her throat and out of her mouth. And she's spent long enough poisoning herself with the delusional thought that refusing to acknowledge her attraction to women would make it vanish, as if it lacked object permanence.

Annie's looked up tons of advice on how to come out to friends, but as they're all preparing dinner together in the kitchen—tonight, it's salmon burgers with a side of parmesan-topped asparagus—she's realizing where she erred.

" _Troy and Abed are more like family to me than friends at this point."_

Still, she guesses similar principles apply, so she waits until they're just about done with dinner, but before they've started tidying up, to tell them, and announces, "I've got something important to share with you both."

They glance at each other, then chorus, "Apartment meeting?"

"No, this'll only take a couple of minutes. I, um, wanted to say thanks earlier for helping me get out of that jam with Shirley."

Troy takes a sip of his Coke and nods. "No problem, Annie. We've always got your back."

Abed notes, as he spears one final crispy piece of asparagus, "You seemed distinctly uncomfortable, so I'm glad we could assist."

She takes a deep breath and nods. "I was. Because...when I said I wasn't looking for a boyfriend right now, I was kind of lying."

They both glance up at her, clearly confused, so she explains, "I'm not looking for a boyfriend, _ever._ Because…" She downs a long drink of water and sprays the words out in a rush. "Because I'm gay."

The words hang out, drift through the air, drape themselves lazily over the couch in the living room, and she realizes, _"The world's not gonna end just because I admitted I'm a lesbian."_

Troy comes over to wrap his arms around her in something of a backwards hug—it's a bit of a challenge to do with a chair in the way. He murmurs, "Welcome to the club," with a grin and a chuckle, and presses a soft kiss to the top of her head.

Abed joins the group hug a second later and comments, "I'm pretty sure you already know this, but you being attracted to women won't change anything. This is a safe space for you, for me, for Troy—all of us, really. And you'll always be our Annie, no matter what."

Their responses are so _them_ , so full of their particular brand of shared love, that she can't help but dissolve into happy tears.

**

Annie's declaration of her identity as a lesbian may have been short, but its impact runs long, clearing previously unseen cobwebs from her vision, imbuing her spirit with a strength that gets her to commit to doing more than just floating through Greendale like so many ghosts. She actively works to banish discontentment from her life now, rather than letting its stench linger like sour, expired milk.

So when she can't find anything to wear one day—or, rather, can't find anything she genuinely _wants_ to wear amidst a sea of patterned dresses and one-color cardigans—she writes a note for herself: _"Treat yourself to a new outfit,"_ then impulsively scrawls, _"And get a new haircut."_

She's unsure of where to start with those goals, besides wanting something different, something that's still _her,_ even though she can't quite articulate that vision yet. She tries to pin it down at the end of the group's latest study session.

" _I want to present myself as...a bit less traditionally feminine. Not futch, exactly. Still a little stylish and sensible, for sure."_

"Hello? Earth to Annie?"

She pops out of her own head, back into reality. "What is it, Britta?"

Her eyebrows flit toward her hairline and she gestures at the empty space, at Troy and Abed waiting for her just outside the study room. "Everyone else left already. I was about to go, but you seemed kinda zoned out."

"Yeah, I got lost in my thoughts. I realized earlier...I wanna change my look, but I don't know where to begin that process." Britta perks up a little at that, and Annie suddenly remembers her so artfully arranging flowers and centerpieces at Shirley and Andre's rehearsal dinner turned wedding. "And I just thought of this now, but you know how good you were at decorating for Shirley and Andre's wedding?"

She nods, and Annie asks hopefully, "Do you know if that expertise translates to fashion?"

Britta chews on her lower lip for a second, scans Annie's outfit, and replies, "I've never tried my hand at being a fashion consultant, but...I could give it a shot. I gotta go home now and give Daniel his dinner, or the little sucker gets ornery, but you could call me later to go over, like, a baseline of ideas? And then we can chat more tomorrow," she suggests.

Annie brightens at her answer. "Works for me. I need to get a better sense of what I might want, anyway."

They hash out some potential clothing options over the phone that night, starting with what Britta hilariously calls a "vibe check," and settle on "sleek, casual chic" as a starting point for updating Annie's wardrobe.

"I'll get to our next meeting a bit early to share what I've found," Britta promises just before they hang up.

Annie's not sure what to expect when she arrives, but Britta's got her decrepit laptop plugged in, with multiple tabs open, and she motions excitedly to Annie.

"First wedding planning, and now you're a fashionista," Annie teases.

Britta shrugs. "What can I say? I guess I'm bad at rejecting patriarchal norms for womanly behavior, but also really good at performing them. And anyway," she goes on, "if I can help you feel more comfortable and confident, then that's a strike against the patriarchy in and of itself. They want to wear us down to nubs, Annie. To nothing more than eraser shavings."

" _How right you are that I'm working against the patriarchy, Britta, even if you don't know it,"_ Annie muses to herself as she grabs what is usually Troy's chair—Abed would notice if his had been nudged, let alone sat on—and settles in. "Now, what am I looking at, exactly?"

Britta delves into her explanation with surprising gusto. "I wanted to find you a handful of concepts you like, more than individual pieces, to make it easier for you to expand your wardrobe. So, starting here." She clicks on a recent promotional picture of Taylor Swift from her _Red_ era. "The form fitting blazer, white t-shirt, and jeans—that's a classic look," Britta comments. "One you could easily upscale for a party, or for a business casual event, or wear as a more laid-back outfit with, say, a graphic tee."

"Okay," Annie murmurs quietly, trying not to be too obvious in her admiration of how the jeans elongate Taylor's legs. "I like that."

"And you don't have to completely eschew dresses and skirts, but…" she clicks on an image to zoom in, showing off more grown-up, semi-eccentric outfit combinations, like a simple black short sleeved top paired with a black skirt with a white diamond pattern, then presents a few more similar options, and Annie finds herself nodding in approval at nearly all of them.

Britta concludes, "I think some tweaks like this will help you make a bolder, but still personalized statement with your fashion choices, more so than the traditionally feminine, cute items you've got in your closet now. Not that you need to completely get rid of those, either!" she hastens to add. "I'm just suggesting, if you're going for something different…?"

She glances up from her screen hopefully and Annie beams at her. "You're a fashion guru, Britts. These possibilities are everything I didn't know I wanted." She pulls her into a hug without waiting. "Thank you so much. And I'll keep what you might call my 'standard' outfits, for sure. I still like them. But…" she looks down at herself and gestures at her demure gray dress, black leggings, and teal cardigan. "This has been my look since about the eighth grade. I'm ready for some change. It's overdue, honestly."

"Happy to help!" Britta replies brightly, and Annie's on the verge of asking for advice on a new hairstyle, too, but then everyone else arrives and the moment passes.

She mentally shrugs. _"Ah, well. I kind of want to figure this out for myself."_

She thinks she's probably a bit too old to be experiencing a true _bildungsroman_ , but she's sometimes heard that queer individuals have standard teen experiences in their early twenties, and that's kind of what this feels like. Although there's no way she's going to have a pink streak dyed in her hair or anything like that.

Out of curiosity, around the end of their study session, she Googles "cute short haircuts."

"Changing your style?" Shirley pipes up.

"Oh, um, maybe. I'm not sure yet."

"Well, I'm sure anything will look good on you, An-nie."

It still takes her about a week to find a style she thinks will suit her—she decides on a chin-length bob—plus another five days to work up the courage to schedule an appointment with her stylist.

The day before her appointment, while she and the boys are working on a puzzle together, Abed notes, in his almost-too-honest way, "You're hitting all the checkmarks for a protagonist taking charge of their life, aren't you?"

She blushes. "I suppose so."

"And is it fair to assume some of that—the potential fashion changes, getting a new haircut—is at least a bit related to your coming out?"

She nods, and he gives a knowing, satisfied nod in return before commenting, "In that case, we have a little gift for you. Or, more accurately, Troy does. He's much better than me at thinking of these kinds of things."

Abed gently taps him on the shoulder to snap him out of his concentration—he's working on the bottom corner of the Spongebob puzzle, and all the coral sections look the same. Abed simply motions his head in the direction of their fort, and Troy quickly retrieves whatever his gift is, then sits back down, between his boyfriend and Annie, the puzzle work on pause.

"So, um…" he clears his throat. "I remember how, the first time I went shopping at a mall after I came out, it was sorta terrifying, but also really freeing. Like, I'm a gay dude, out buying a scarf at The Gap."

"Oookay...oh, was that where you got the maroon scarf?" Annie asks. "It's such a nice color."

He grins at her memory. "It was. And, this might not make much sense at all, since maybe you've already had that moment, but, um…" he glances at Abed, like, _"A little help here, buddy?"_

Abed chimes in, "Troy, mostly, thought it'd be nice to give you that experience, in a way. Or, if you've already had it, then you can still buy something nice for yourself."

Troy hands her the gift card to their local outlet mall, good for use in any of its stores, and begins apologizing, "We only put twenty bucks on it since we're broke, but—"

She interrupts his unnecessary words to hug both of them as tightly as she can.

She's too choked up to say anything, but she thinks they get the gist of her sentiment.

**

" _It's just a haircut,"_ Annie reminds herself as she pulls into Santinello's parking lot and walks into the salon. _"If you don't like this look, your hair will grow back. It doesn't have to be a monumental movie moment or anything."_

But between her religious upbringing and her dueling, competing needs to remain organized and appease her generalized anxiety, Annie's always been quick to assign power to rituals, to the symbolic. So the hair salon becomes a synagogue, with perfume offerings laid at the tabernacle getting swapped out for the heady haze of gaudy styling products. She's blending her religions now, but as her hairstylist, Dani, scrubs her hair in the sink, she classifies the water washing over her as a baptism, and when she sits up in the chair, adjusting the towel on her head, the violent _crack_ of her neck echoes through the parlor like a hymn.

She's usually more of a visual learner than an aural one, but the power of the sound splinters Annie in half. She frowns. No, that's not quite right—it makes a partition, a divide, casts a light on two paths.

Dani catches her gaze in the mirror once she's settled in and has the salon cape arranged over her just so. She holds up her phone, pulls up the picture Annie texted her, and asks again to confirm, "This cut is what you want?"

Old Annie would hesitate, hem and haw, and settle for her standard trim. Maybe she'd tell Dani to take a touch more off than usual, but even that small adjustment would test the limited scope of her bravery.

New Annie nods before she can chicken out. "Chop it off."

She's not used to losing so much hair in one go, to seeing her brunette tresses pile up on the floor, lopped away from her like all the influences that made her doubt she actually liked women—her parents' thinly veiled homophobia, compulsory heterosexuality, general pressure to be "normal," especially in high school, where being Jewish, wearing glasses, and being a nerd were more than enough reasons for her to be othered.

She's always heard that she looks young for her age, that her face is open, kindly, trustworthy. She'd never particularly minded those compliments while she was growing up, especially since they were among the few she received with any regularity, but now, they make her blood boil a little. She's got baser impulses, too, and they're part of her. She smashed Jeff's head into a table and busted his nose, on two separate occasions, no less. She chloroformed an innocent janitor _twice_. She spiked her friends' coffees with amphetamines so they'd get a group project done on time for once (and she will carry that secret to her coffin).

As her new haircut takes shape, she notices a new definition to her jawline, like the fine-pointed edge of a freshly sharpened dagger.

The religious parables she read growing up, the sermons Rabbi Thompson delivered, often lamented the loss of innocence, the idea of it being stolen away from the pure of heart.

" _But what happens when you willingly make the sacrifice yourself?_ " she wonders. She knows the answer, from the story of Abraham and Isaac—that you're rewarded for true faith. But that's not quite what she's looking for, because she's playing both characters. So she asks further, _"What happens when you're the lamb walking to the slaughter and the butcher plunging her knife into its neck, painting the dirt red with its blood?"_

It hits her— _"duh, it's literal, dummy"_ —death and life. The snuffing of one candle, the lighting of another.

Dani spins her around to face the mirror. "Okay, hon. Whaddaya think? You like it?"

Her grin stretches so wide, it might be a touch demonic. "Yeah," she breathes, almost laughing as she instinctively reaches out to brush her hair off her shoulders, but, of course, there's nothing there. She watches her pulse point in her neck throb and she can't believe how long it took her to wake up. "Yeah," she repeats, smiling up and nodding at Dani. "I like it a lot."

Annie's momentum carries her out of the salon to the mall, and she's a good hundred dollars poorer between those two excursions, but, hey, you can't put a price on confidence.

**

"Five minute warning!" Troy calls so everyone can wrap up whatever they're doing before their semi-emergency study session.

Based on the muttering and the sounds of _"splats"_ and _"kabooms"_ coming from the living room, Annie guesses her boys are grinding their way through a particularly challenging level of Super Meat Boy on the XBox.

Meanwhile, she's got a decision to make: to keep on her snazzy new outfit, or to change into more comfortable clothes—a hoodie and Greendale sweatpants—that don't make much of a statement. Thanks to everyone's schedules on Mondays, she's only seen Troy and Abed.

She considers herself in the mirror, decked out in cream-colored Keds, dark blue jeans, a gray Metric t-shirt (she's gotta thank Britta for getting her into their music), and a sharply tailored navy blazer.

And as she checks herself out, some of the lyrics to "Lost Kitten" play back in her head:

_When you lie, I cover it up_

_When you hide, I cover it up_

_When you cry, I cover it up_

_When you come undone, I cover it up_

Annie recognizes that she consists largely of fissures, foils, dualities: the DARE program leader turned Adderall junkie. The reformed addict voted Most Likely to Succeed at a rehab clinic. The potential Valedictorian of a community college clinging to accreditation by the skin of its teeth. The girl who baked Pillsbury Halloween cookies for one party and ended up threatening to slit her friends' throats and bathe in their blood at another.

And, honestly, she's generally comfortable with her identity being constructed from competing and, often, disparate parts.

But when it comes to _this_ part in particular, her identity as a lesbian? A part of herself that she has, at various times in her life, tried to ignore, bury, deconstruct, distort, and otherwise destroy? A part she's tried to turn into a "you" that she can cover up?

Her head shake is more of a twitch, and her jaw sets. She's not changing her clothes, and she's not fucking compromising this vital piece of herself for anything, or anyone.

"No more hiding my truth. Fuck that," she murmurs to herself in the mirror, and follows it up with an even quieter, but bolder, whisper. "Let's make a girl turn her head for you sometime this week."

The words slink out, unbidden, and Annie claps a hand over her mouth, watches her cheeks flush pink at her unexpected, almost obscene bravery.

" _I'm so totally gay_ ," she thinks proudly, and she answers Troy and Abed's joint calls of, "Are you ready yet?" with a breezy shout of "Coming!" and a bubbly burst of laughter.

She doesn't mind the attention when everyone else trickles into the study room, when Jeff's eyes pop and he comments, "Whoa, someone's dressed to impress. Killer haircut, by the way," when Britta gushes, "You look amazing, Annie," when Shirley notes, with her unique blend of maternal warmth and suspicion of the youth, "You seem really pleased with your change."

Annie offers a gracious "Thanks" to start, and her answer to their collective unasked question of "What's up with the change?" comes to her easily: "I just feel more like myself than I have in a while."


End file.
